Goldman Responds To Court Block Of Trump Tariffs: Nothingburger, White House Can Sidestep

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Markets are all aflutter after a panel of activist Biden-appointed judges and a fossilized Reagan-era Karen at the International Trade Court - which nobody had ever heard of before tonight - threw a wrench in the wheels of Trump's trade policies, seemingly halting all of Trump's Liberation Day tariffs. The kneejerk reaction - that this is the end of Trump's reign of tariff terror - has promptly send the dollar sharply higher and spoos above 6,000 and just shy of a bull market.

There is just one problem: it's all just one big nothingburger as Goldman explains in a note published by the bank's chief political economist Alec Phillips late on Wednesday, "Court Blocks Majority of Tariff Hikes, But White House Could Reinstate Them Following Appeal or Through Other Tariff Authorities" (and available to professional subscribers) in which the bank explains that while the ruling is a "setback", Trump can not only win on appeal, but has multiple options to sidestep the ruling while waiting for the Supreme Court to rule and even to proceed should SCOTUS for some reason side with the trade court decision, to wit:
Bottom Line: The Court of International Trade blocked the tariffs the Trump administration imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The ruling blocks 6.7pp of tariff increase since the start of the year, including the tariffs on Canada, China, Mexico, and the 10% baseline tariff, but does not affect sectoral tariffs. As the administration can impose an across-the-board tariff and country-specific tariffs under other legal authorities (e.g., Sec. 122 and Sec. 301) this ruling represents a setback for the administration's tariff plans and increases uncertainty but might not change the final outcome for most major US trading partners.

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